NZ startup gets $3m to drive mobile ad app expansion

New Zealand-based ad tech company, Postr, has raised $3 million to spur deployment of its telecom whitelabel mobile app across Australia and South East Asian markets.

The startup, which was founded in 2014, provides a solution that allows telcos to serve up ads to consumers on locked mobile screen in return for extra mobile data or airtime.

Postr’s technology is being used to launch the Optus Xtra service from Optus in Australia, which sees customers given the ability to access another 1GB of data on monthly plans, or $2 of extra credit on daily plans every 28 days, in return for having ads displayed on their phone’s locked screen.

Postr initially launched its technology as a B2C app, then teamed up with Skinny Mobile in New Zealand to create its first whitelabel app, Skinny Collect. According to the company, the apps have generated a combined 60,000 downloads in New Zealand. The service is available across Android devices.

The latest cash injection has been supplied by a group of private investors in Singapore, as well as existing backers including Gunung Sewu Group in Indonesia, K1W1, New Zealand Venture Investment Fund, and senior leadership from PayPal in the US.

Postr founder and CEO, Milan Reinartz, said New Zealand had been a great testing ground, but commercially it was time to seek a presence in other shores across the region.

“Our intention has always been to eventually grow globally, with an initial focus on large developing markets in South East Asia, where Android is dominating and mobile penetration is growing incredibly fast,”he said. “Sponsored data is a phenomenon on the rise, with mobile data the most sought after source of connectivity.

“In the meantime, telco ARPUs [monthly average revenue per user] are shrinking as people are no longer willing to pay for minutes or SMS, instead using OTT providers like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger to make calls and send texts.”

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